Incentive

If I lived in a perfect society, I would definitely have incentive to maintain it. Although, if you think about it, if you were born in a perfect society, your incentives would be much different than those coming from a society which is substantially less perfect than the utopian one you then enter. In a sense, you would have to come from the lower ranks to appreciate the higher status of a utopian society. Would I become some sort of stoic philosopher lost in apathy if I were in a utopian society? Maybe. I was just discussing how I have gotten tired of food in general. The need for something more exotic always fuels some other fun and divisive trait which totally tanks utopia.

As for my personal incentive, I would suppose I would want to die knowing I did something. That in turn provides the drive to do what I do now. That is extremely relative, and it should be. Everybody has their own idea of doing something. LOL!! It's like that Jacuzzi commercial from a while back, the one where the old Italian lady is on her death bed and has all of her children around her with pictures of all she had done in life. She says she has literally done everything. But then she looks out the window and see some woman preparing a bath in a super awesome Jacuzzi and she says "damn!." LOL!

Considering the society I grew up in is far from perfect, I do not think I am capable of truly picturing what incentives I would have to do anything in a utopian society. All I can picture is a society that is drugged out on bliss and contentment. In many ways, it almost seems like it would be a nightmare living in some sort of perfect world. I find joy in a unity of difference. Maybe that is what a utopia would be. A society that was unified through its differences. In that case, my incentive would be to help foster constructive dialogue between people to come to understanding.

Which brings me to my personal incentive. I would like to die knowing that I brought vastly different people together to understand their differences can unify rather than separate them. I guess that is my idealistic goal that I have for my future. By using the Socratic method, I would like to bring different thinkers together to unify through difference.

As an Industrial Engineer I had to study industrial psychology. It might surprise you what the greatest incentive for workers is really

I just relate one case that might interest you

Factory workers whose work was repetitive and monotonous were studied over a long period to establish what could motivate or de-motivate them

The business analysts first dimmed the lighting and work improved, they then made the work place increasingly hot and uncomfortable, but to their amazement the work rate, quality and productivity just continued to rise and increase substantially, at that?

Only at the point where the lighting was so dark and impossible to see in and the heat unbearable did productivity begin to decline

The analysts and management, interviewed each worker to find out exactly why this had happened.

The workers felt highly motivated and important because at last they were at noticed as valuable members of the business.

It was the recognition of them as important, this made then feel a part of a team and the occasional praise for good work received also motivated them greatly.

Because they were noticed the felt secure and non - threatened and this gave them them motivation to please the boss, who was now a face, a person they could relate to

A good word of thanks and appreciation by the boss, the knowledge their jobs were secure was much more motivation than an unpleasant environment where they felt they could be fired for the smallest transgression, even if the alternate job might offer them substantially more

It's very difficult for us to think outside our own boxes. We've grown up within a given structure that's defined 'goals', 'wants' and 'needs. It's tough for us to imagine what to struggle for, desire or occupy.
[INDENT]But I have given it some thought now and again; Oh how I'd love to spend my time traveling, meeting people, talking and learning. I'd love to meet and spend an hour each with a hundred-thousand people not of my culture. I'd read... then spend time talking about that. I'd see all the sights that lay prohibited for want of money and I'd spend every moment I could with my family and friends. I'd go back to school - just cuz - and soak up every obscure subject that's ever struck my fancy, then spend time talking with people about that. I'd build something to be proud of, get dropped in the middle of nowhere just to see if I could survive. Wow, the more I think of it, I suppose this isn't so hard after all.
[/INDENT] As it is peace, friendship and fellowship while diving deeper and deeper into history and philosophy are my incentives. Those other things, well... they'll have to wait I suppose.

Thanks - nice topic.